[jambo80]

Hello,
I'm currently running Windows Vista and XP in dual boot on separate hard drives. It's really annoying to have to restart my PC and fart around with the bios settings to boot from the hard drive (OS) I want.

Striker Extreme
Intel Q6600 Duo Quad
8800 Ultra
4GB RAM

My first question: Is there any way I can choose which hard drive/operating system I want to boot up from a windows splash screen?

Secondly: In an ideal world I want to be able to switch between operating systems (Vista/XP per example) whilst in one or the others explore screen (desktop). I have researched programs like VirtualPC but would like to know if there is there another way of doing this without forking out for the software?

Thanks in advance

[bigbear]

The only way you can switch between OS in windows is how you already mentioned virtually.
To dual boot it is better if both the OS's are on the same drive in separate partitions.
This way through a boot loader the default will OS will load unless you choose a different OS at startup
Another way is two pc's and switch between using a kvm switch, which is what I use here also good for backup